Editing Humphry Davy (section)

== Early career: 1798–1802 ==

=== Davy's gift for chemistry is recognised ===
[[File:Davies Giddy (from 1817 Davies Gilbert).jpg|thumb|228x228px|Davies Giddy (later: Davies Gilbert)]]
Davies Giddy met Davy in [[Penzance]] carelessly swinging on the half-gate of Dr Borlase's house, and interested by his talk invited him to his house at Tredrea and offered him the use of his library. This led to his introduction to Dr Edwards, who lived at Hayle Copper House. Edwards was a lecturer in chemistry in the school of [[St. Bartholomew's Hospital]]. He permitted Davy to use his laboratory and possibly directed his attention to the floodgates of the port of [[Hayle]], which were rapidly decaying as a result of the contact between copper and iron under the influence of [[seawater]]. [[Galvanic corrosion]] was not understood at that time, but the phenomenon prepared Davy's mind for subsequent experiments on ships' [[copper sheathing]]. Gregory Watt, son of [[James Watt (inventor)|James Watt]], visited Penzance for his health's sake, and while lodging at the Davys' house became a friend and gave him instructions in chemistry. Davy was also acquainted with the [[Wedgwood]] family, who spent a winter at Penzance.<ref name=DNB />

==== Thomas Beddoes ====
[[File:Thomas Beddoes (cropped).jpg|thumb|207x207px|Thomas Beddoes]]
At this time, physician and scientific writer [[Thomas Beddoes]] and geologist [[John Hailstone]] were engaged in a geological controversy on the rival merits of the [[Plutonism|Plutonian]] and [[Neptunist]] hypotheses. They travelled together to examine the Cornish coast accompanied by Giddy—an intimate friend of Beddoes—and made Davy's acquaintance. Beddoes had established at [[Bristol]] a medical research facility called the '[[Pneumatic Institution]],' and needed an assistant to superintend the laboratory. Giddy recommended Davy, and in 1798 Gregory Watt showed Beddoes Davy's ''Young man's Researches on Heat and Light'', which he later published in the first volume of ''West-Country Contributions''. After prolonged negotiations, Mrs. Davy and Borlase consented to Davy's departure. Tonkin wished him to remain in his native town as a surgeon, and altered his will when Davy insisted on going to Dr Beddoes.

===Pneumatic Institution===
[[File:5 & 6 Dowry Square, Bristol.jpg|thumb|Site of the Pneumatic Institution, Bristol]]
On 2 October 1798, Davy joined the Pneumatic Institution at Bristol. It had been established to investigate the medical powers of [[factitious airs]] and gases (gases produced experimentally or artificially), and Davy was to superintend the various experiments. The arrangement agreed between Dr Beddoes and Davy was generous, and enabled Davy to give up all claims on his paternal property in favour of his mother. He did not intend to abandon the medical profession and was determined to study and graduate at Edinburgh, but he soon began to fill parts of the institution with voltaic batteries. While living in Bristol, Davy met the [[Earl of Durham]], who resided in the institution for his health. 

==== Anna Beddoes ====
Davy threw himself energetically into the work of the laboratory and formed a long romantic friendship with Mrs Anna Beddoes, the novelist [[Maria Edgeworth|Maria Edgeworth's]] sister, who acted as his guide on walks and other fine sights of the locality. The critic Maurice Hindle was the first to reveal that Davy and Anna had written poems for each other.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Hindle |first1=Maurice |title=Nature, Power, and the Light of Suns: The Poetry of Humphry Davy |url=http://mauricehindle.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Nature-Power-the-Light-of-Suns-essay.pdf |access-date=4 May 2017 |archive-date=1 August 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200801211604/http://mauricehindle.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Nature-Power-the-Light-of-Suns-essay.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref> Wahida Amin has transcribed and discussed a number of poems written between 1803 and 1808 to "Anna" and one to her infant child.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Amin |first1=Wahida |title=The Poetry and Science of Humphry Davy |journal=Ultrasound in Medicine & Biology |date=2022 |volume=48 |issue=1 |pages=35–46 |doi=10.1016/j.ultrasmedbio.2021.09.011 |pmid=34702642 |url=http://usir.salford.ac.uk/30795/1/Wahida_Amin_-_The_Poetry_and_Science_of_Humphry_Davy_-_23.01.14.pdf |access-date=4 May 2017 |archive-date=16 May 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170516235835/http://usir.salford.ac.uk/30795/1/Wahida_Amin_-_The_Poetry_and_Science_of_Humphry_Davy_-_23.01.14.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref>  

==== Non-existence of caloric ====
In 1799, the first volume of the ''West-Country Collections'' was issued. Half consisted of Davy's essays ''On Heat, Light, and the Combinations of Light'', ''On Phos-oxygen and its Combinations'', and on the ''Theory of Respiration''. On 22 February 1799 Davy, wrote to Davies Giddy, "I am now as much convinced of the non-existence of [[Caloric theory|caloric]] as I am of the existence of light."  

==== Nitrous oxide ====
[[File:James Watt by Carl Frederik von Breda (cropped).jpg|thumb|193x193px|[[James Watt]] in 1792 by [[Carl Frederik von Breda]]]]
[[File:Robert Southey by Peter Vandyke.jpg|thumb|174x174px|Robert Southey]]
[[File:Anaesthesia exhibition, 1946 Wellcome M0009908.jpg|thumb|Sir Humphry Davy's ''Researches chemical and philosophical: chiefly concerning nitrous oxide'' (1800), pp. 556 and 557 (right), outlining potential anaesthetic properties of [[nitrous oxide]] in relieving pain during surgery]]
In 1799, Davy became increasingly well known due to his experiments with the physiological action of some gases, including laughing gas ([[nitrous oxide]]).<ref>{{cite book|last1=Hardman|first1=Jonathan G.|title=Oxford Textbook of Anaesthesia|date=2017|publisher=Oxford University Press|page=529}}</ref> The gas was first synthesised in 1772 by the [[natural philosopher]] and chemist [[Joseph Priestley]], who called it ''dephlogisticated nitrous air'' (see [[phlogiston]]).<ref name="Nitrous Oxide pioneers" >{{cite web
  |url=http://journals.lww.com/anesthesiology/citation/1941/09000/The_Development_of_Anesthesia.8.aspx
  |author=Keys TE
  |title=The Development of Anesthesia
  |work=Anesthesiology journal (Sep. 1941, vol. 2, is. 5, pp. 552–74)
  |year=1941
  |access-date=24 June 2010
|archive-date=12 January 2014
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140112122739/http://journals.lww.com/anesthesiology/citation/1941/09000/The_Development_of_Anesthesia.8.aspx
  |url-status=dead
  }}</ref> Priestley described his discovery in the book ''Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air (1775)'', in which he described how to produce the preparation of "nitrous air diminished", by heating iron filings dampened with [[nitric acid]].<ref name="Joseph Priestley" >{{cite book
  |url=http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/nitrous/nitrous_journal1.shtml
  |author=Priestley J
  |title=Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air
  |volume=2
  |at=sec. 3
  |via=Erowid.org
  |year=1776
  |access-date=24 June 2010
|archive-date=12 May 2022
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220512190232/https://www.erowid.org/chemicals/nitrous/nitrous_journal1.shtml
  |url-status=live
  }}</ref> In another letter to Giddy, on 10 April, Davy informs him: "I made a discovery yesterday which proves how necessary it is to repeat experiments. The gaseous oxide of azote (the laughing gas) is perfectly respirable when pure. It is never deleterious but when it contains nitrous gas. I have found a mode of making it pure." He said that he breathed sixteen quarts of it for nearly seven minutes, and that it "absolutely intoxicated me."<ref name="DNB" />

In addition to Davy himself, his enthusiastic experimental subjects included his poet friends [[Robert Southey]] and [[Samuel Taylor Coleridge]],<ref name="Jay2014">{{cite journal |last1=Jay |first1=Mike |date=8 August 2014 |title='O, Excellent Air Bag'p: Humphry Davy and Nitrous Oxide |url=http://publicdomainreview.org/2014/08/06/o-excellent-air-bag-humphry-davy-and-nitrous-oxide/ |journal=[[The Public Domain Review]] |publisher=[[Open Knowledge Foundation]] |volume=4 |issue=16 |access-date=6 August 2014 |archive-date=9 August 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140809212454/http://publicdomainreview.org/2014/08/06/o-excellent-air-bag-humphry-davy-and-nitrous-oxide/ |url-status=live }} {{Open access}}</ref><ref name="Roberts">{{cite journal |last1=Roberts |first1=Jacob |date=2017 |title=High Times |url=https://www.sciencehistory.org/distillations/magazine/high-times |journal=Distillations |volume=2 |issue=4 |pages=36–39 |access-date=22 March 2018 |archive-date=8 April 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230408075721/https://www.sciencehistory.org/distillations/magazine/high-times |url-status=live }}</ref> as well as Gregory Watt and James Watt, other close friends. James Watt built a portable gas chamber to facilitate Davy's experiments with the inhalation of nitrous oxide. At one point the gas  was combined with wine to judge its efficacy as a cure for [[hangover]] (his laboratory notebook indicated success). The gas was popular among Davy's friends and acquaintances, and he noted that it might be useful for performing surgical operations.<ref>In his 1800 ''Researches, Chemical and Philosophical'' (p. 556), Davy commented: "''As nitrous oxide in its extensive operation appears capable of destroying pain, it may probably be used with advantage during surgical operations in which no great effusion of blood takes place.''"</ref> [[Anesthetic]]s were not regularly used in medicine or dentistry until decades after Davy's death.<ref name="AOW" >{{cite book|last=Holmes |first=Richard|title=The Age of Wonder|publisher=Pantheon Books  |year=2008  |isbn=978-0-375-42222-5  |ref=Holmes, 2008, AOW}}</ref>

==== Carbon monoxide ====
In the gas experiments Davy ran considerable risks. His respiration of [[nitric oxide]] which may have combined with air in the mouth to form [[nitric acid]] (HNO<sub>3</sub>),<ref name="Jay2014" /> severely injured the mucous membrane, and in Davy's attempt to inhale four quarts of "pure [[Factitious airs|hydrocarbonate]]" gas in an experiment with [[carbon monoxide]] he "seemed sinking into annihilation." On being removed into the open air, Davy faintly articulated, "I do not think I shall die,"<ref name="Jay2014" /> but some hours elapsed before the painful symptoms ceased.<ref name="DNB" /> Davy was able to take his own pulse as he staggered out of the laboratory and into the garden, and he described it in his notes as "threadlike and beating with excessive quickness".

==== Early publications ====
During 1799, Beddoes and Davy published ''Contributions to physical and medical knowledge, principally from the west of England'' and ''Essays on heat, light, and the combinations of light, with a new theory of respiration. On the generation of oxygen gas, and the causes of the colors of organic beings.'' Their experimental work was poor, and the publications were harshly criticised.<ref name="Kenyon" /> In after years Davy regretted he had ever published these immature hypotheses, which he subsequently designated "the dreams of misemployed genius which the light of experiment and observation has never conducted to truth."<ref name="DNB" /> These criticisms, however, led Davy to refine and improve his experimental techniques,<ref name="Kenyon" /> spending his later time at the institution increasingly in experimentation. 

In December 1799 Davy visited London for the first time and extended his circle of friends. Davy features in the diary of William Godwin, with their first meeting recorded for 4 December 1799.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Godwin |first1=William |title=William Godwin's Diary |url=http://godwindiary.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/people/DAV03.html |access-date=4 May 2017 |archive-date=2 December 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161202204627/http://godwindiary.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/people/DAV03.html |url-status=live }}</ref>

In 1800, Davy informed Giddy that he had been "repeating the galvanic experiments with success" in the intervals of the experiments on the gases, which "almost incessantly occupied him from January to April." In 1800, Davy published his ''Researches, Chemical and Philosophical, chiefly concerning Nitrous Oxide and its Respiration'', and received a more positive response.<ref name="Kenyon" />

==== Proofreading ''Lyrical Ballads'' ====
[[File:William Wordsworth at 28 by William Shuter(cropped).jpg|thumb|223x223px|[[William Wordsworth]] at 28, by William Shuter (1798)]]
[[File:Samuel Taylor Coleridge (cropped)2.jpg|thumb|190x190px|[[Samuel Taylor Coleridge]], by [[Peter Vandyke]] (1795)]]
[[William Wordsworth]] and Samuel Taylor Coleridge moved to the [[Lake District]] in 1800, and asked Davy to deal with the Bristol publishers of the ''[[Lyrical Ballads]]'', Biggs & Cottle. Coleridge asked Davy to proofread the second edition, the first to contain Wordsworth's "[[Preface to the Lyrical Ballads]]", in a letter dated 16 July 1800: "Will you be so kind as just to look over the sheets of the lyrical Ballads".<ref>{{cite book|last1=Coleridge|first1=Samuel Taylor|editor1-last=Griggs|editor1-first=E. L.|title=The Collected Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge|date=1956–1971|publisher=Clarendon Press|pages=vol 1, 606}}</ref> Wordsworth subsequently wrote to Davy on 29 July 1800, sending him the first manuscript sheet of poems and asking him specifically to correct: "any thing you find amiss in the punctuation a business at which I am ashamed to say I am no adept".<ref>{{cite book|last1=Wordsworth|first1=William|editor1-last=de Selincourt|editor1-first=E.|title=The Letters of William and Dorothy Wordsworth|url=https://archive.org/details/lettersofwilliam0006word|url-access=registration|date=1967|publisher=Clarendon Press|pages=vol. 1, 289}}</ref> Wordsworth was ill in the autumn of 1800 and slow in sending poems for the second edition; the volume appeared on 26 January 1801 even though it was dated 1800.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Sharrock|first1=Roger|title=The Chemist and the Poet: Sir Humphry Davy and the Preface to the Lyrical Ballads|journal=Notes and Records of the Royal Society|date=1962|volume=17|pages=57–76|doi=10.1098/rsnr.1962.0006|s2cid=144053478}}</ref> While it is impossible to know whether Davy was at fault, this edition of the Lyrical Ballads contained many errors, including the poem [[Michael (poem)|"Michael"]] being left incomplete.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Wordsworth|first1=William|title=Lyrical Ballads|date=1800|publisher=Biggs & Cottle|page=210}}</ref> In a personal notebook marked on the front cover "Clifton 1800 From August to Novr", Davy wrote his own Lyrical Ballad: "As I was walking up the street".<ref>{{cite book|last1=Davy|first1=Humphry|title=Royal Institution HD 20c|pages=44, 46, 52}}</ref> Wordsworth features in Davy's poem as the recorder of ordinary lives in the line: "By poet Wordsworths Rymes" [sic].

===Royal Institution===
In 1799, [[Benjamin Thompson]] (Count Rumford) had proposed the establishment in London of an 'Institution for Diffusing Knowledge', i.e. the [[Royal Institution]]. The house in [[Albemarle Street]] was bought in April 1799.{{sfn |Holmes |2008 |pp=285}} Rumford became secretary to the institution, and Dr [[Thomas Garnett (physician)|Thomas Garnett]] was the first lecturer.

In February 1801 Davy was interviewed by the committee of the Royal Institution, comprising [[Joseph Banks]], Benjamin Thompson and [[Henry Cavendish]]. Davy wrote to Davies Giddy on 8 March 1801 about the offers made by Banks and Thompson, a possible move to London and the promise of funding for his work in galvanism. He also mentioned that he might not be collaborating further with Beddoes on therapeutic gases. The next day Davy left Bristol to take up his new post at the Royal Institution,<ref name="AOW"/> it having been resolved 'that Humphry Davy be engaged in the service of the Royal Institution in the capacity of assistant lecturer in chemistry, director of the chemical laboratory, and assistant editor of the journals of the institution, and that he be allowed to occupy a room in the house, and be furnished with coals and candles, and that he be paid a salary of 100l. per annum.'<ref name="DNB" />

On 25 April 1801, Davy gave his first lecture on the relatively new subject of 'Galvanism'. He and his friend Coleridge had had many conversations about the nature of human knowledge and progress, and Davy's lectures gave his audience a vision of human civilisation brought forward by scientific discovery. "It [science] has bestowed on him powers which may almost be called creative; which have enabled him to modify and change the beings surrounding him, and by his experiments to interrogate nature with power, not simply as a scholar, passive and seeking only to understand her operations, but rather as a master, active with his own instruments."<ref name="AOW" /> The first lecture garnered rave reviews, and by the June lecture Davy wrote to John King that his last lecture had attendance of nearly 500 people. "There was Respiration, Nitrous Oxide, and unbounded Applause. Amen!"<ref name="AOW" /> Davy revelled in his public status.[[File:Chemical lectures. Etching by Thomas Rowlandson.jpg|thumb|400x400px|''Chemical lectures'' – etching by [[Thomas Rowlandson]]]]

==== Women's scientific education ====
[[Image:Royal Institution - Humphry Davy.jpg|thumb|right|400px|1802 satirical cartoon by [[James Gillray]] showing a [[Royal Institution]] lecture on pneumatics, with Davy holding the bellows and [[Count Rumford]] looking on at extreme right. Dr [[Thomas Garnett (physician)|Thomas Garnett]] is the lecturer, holding the victim's nose.]]
Davy's lectures included spectacular and sometimes dangerous chemical demonstrations along with scientific information, and were presented with considerable showmanship by the young and handsome man.<ref name="Distillations">{{cite journal|last1=Knight|first1=David|title=Left Behind|journal=Distillations|date=2017|volume=2|issue=4|pages=40–43|url=https://www.sciencehistory.org/distillations/magazine/left-behind|access-date=22 March 2018|archive-date=23 March 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180323031043/https://www.sciencehistory.org/distillations/magazine/left-behind|url-status=live}}</ref> 
Davy also included both poetic and religious commentary in his lectures, emphasizing that God's design was revealed by chemical investigations. Religious commentary was in part an attempt to appeal to women in his audiences. Davy, like many of his enlightenment contemporaries, supported female education and women's involvement in scientific pursuits, even proposing that women be admitted to evening events at the Royal Society.
Davy acquired a large female following around London. In a satirical cartoon by Gillray, nearly half of the attendees pictured are female. His support of women caused Davy to be subjected to considerable gossip and innuendo, and to be criticised as unmanly.<ref name="Golinski">{{cite book|last1=Golinski|first1=Jan|title=The Experimental Self: Humphry Davy and the Making of a Man of Science|date=2016|publisher=The University of Chicago Press|location=Chicago|isbn=9780226351360|pages=70–85}}</ref>

==== Incandescent light and arc light ====
{{further|Arc lamp}}
[[File:Lichtbogen 3000 Volt.jpg|alt=|thumb|An electric arc between two nails]]
In 1802, Humphry Davy had what was then the most powerful electrical battery in the world at the Royal Institution. With it, Davy created the first [[incandescent light]] by passing electric current through a thin strip of platinum, chosen because the metal had an extremely high melting point. It was neither sufficiently bright nor long lasting enough to be of practical use, but demonstrated the principle. By 1806 he was able to demonstrate a much more powerful form of electric lighting to the [[Royal Society]] in London. It was an early form of [[Arc lamp|arc light]] which produced its illumination from an electric arc created between two charcoal rods.

==== Full lecturer at the Royal Institution ====
When Davy's lecture series on Galvanism ended, he progressed to a new series on [[Agricultural Chemistry|agricultural chemistry]], and his popularity continued to skyrocket. By June 1802, after just over a year at the Institution and at the age of&nbsp;23, Davy was nominated to full lecturer at the [[Royal Institution]] of Great Britain. Garnett, the incumbent lecturer, quietly resigned, citing health reasons.<ref name="AOW" />

==== Royal Society ====
In November 1804 Davy became a Fellow of the [[Royal Society]], over which he would later preside. He was one of the founding members of the [[Geological Society of London]] in 1807<ref>[http://www.geolsoc.org.uk/gsl/society/history History of the Geological Society] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120907163746/http://www.geolsoc.org.uk/gsl/society/history |date=7 September 2012}} Geolsoc.org.uk</ref> and later became a Fellow.<ref>{{cite book |last=Woodward |first=Horace B. |author-link=Horace Bolingbroke Woodward |title=The History of the Geological Society of London |url=https://archive.org/details/historygeologic00wood/page/28/mode/2up?q=davy |year=1907 |publisher=Geological Society |location=London |page=29}}</ref> He was elected a foreign member of the [[Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences]] and as an honorary member of the [[American Philosophical Society]] in 1810,<ref>{{Cite web |title=APS Member History |url=https://search.amphilsoc.org/memhist/search?creator=John+Haighton&title=&subject=&subdiv=&mem=&year=&year-max=&dead=&keyword=&smode=advanced |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210713131601/https://search.amphilsoc.org/memhist/search?creator=John+Haighton&title=&subject=&subdiv=&mem=&year=&year-max=&dead=&keyword=&smode=advanced |archive-date=13 July 2021 |url-status=live |publisher=[[American Philosophical Society]] |access-date=2 April 2021}}</ref> and a Foreign Honorary Member of the [[American Academy of Arts and Sciences]] in 1822.<ref name="AAAS">{{cite web|title=Book of Members, 1780–2010: Chapter D|url=http://www.amacad.org/publications/BookofMembers/ChapterD.pdf|publisher=American Academy of Arts and Sciences|access-date=8 September 2016|archive-date=9 August 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180809114018/http://www.amacad.org/publications/BookofMembers/ChapterD.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref>